UNIT – III

ARRAYS

An array is defined as the collection of similar type of data items stored at contiguous
memory locations. Arrays are the derived data type in C programming language which
can store the primitive type of data such as int, char, double, float, etc. It also has the
capability to store the collection of derived data types, such as pointers, structure, etc.
The array is the simplest data structure where each data element can be randomly
accessed by using its index number.

Arrays a kind of data structure that can store a fixed-size sequential collection of
elements of the same type. An array is used to store a collection of data, but it is often
more useful to think of an array as a collection of variables of the same type.
Instead of declaring individual variables, such as number0, number1, ..., and number99,
you declare one array variable such as numbers and use numbers[0], numbers[1], and ...,
numbers[99] to represent individual variables. A specific element in an array is accessed
by an index.
All arrays consist of contiguous memory locations. The lowest address corresponds to
the first element and the highest address to the last element.

C array is beneficial if you have to store similar elements. For example, if we want to store the
marks of a student in 6 subjects, then we don't need to define different variables for the marks in
the different subject. Instead of that, we can define an array which can store the marks in each
subject at the contiguous memory locations.

By using the array, we can access the elements easily. Only a few lines of code are required to
access the elements of the array.
Why we need Array in C Programming?

Consider a scenario where you need to find out the average of 100 integer numbers entered by
user. In C, you have two ways to do this: 1) Define 100 variables with int data type and then
perform 100 scanf() operations to store the entered values in the variables and then at last
calculate the average of them. 2) Have a single integer array to store all the values, loop the array
to store all the entered values in array and later calculate the average.
Which solution is better according to you? Obviously the second solution, it is convenient to
store same data types in one single variable and later access them using array index

Declaring Arrays

To declare an array in C, a programmer specifies the type of the elements and the number of
elements required by an array as follows –

type arrayName [ arraySize ];

This is called a single-dimensional array. The arraySize must be an integer constant greater than
zero and type can be any valid C data type. For example, to declare a 10-element array
called balance of type double, use this statement –

double balance[10];

Here balance is a variable array which is sufficient to hold up to 10 double numbers.

Initializing Arrays

You can initialize an array in C either one by one or using a single statement as follows –

double balance[5] = {1000.0, 2.0, 3.4, 7.0, 50.0};

The number of values between braces { } cannot be larger than the number of elements that we
declare for the array between square brackets [ ].
If you omit the size of the array, an array just big enough to hold the initialization is created.
Therefore, if you write −
double balance[] = {1000.0, 2.0, 3.4, 7.0, 50.0};

You will create exactly the same array as you did in the previous example. Following is an
example to assign a single element of the array –

balance[4] = 50.0;
The above statement assigns the 5th element in the array with a value of 50.0. All arrays have 0
as the index of their first element which is also called the base index and the last index of an
array will be total size of the array minus 1. Shown below is the pictorial representation of the
array we discussed above –

Accessing Array Elements

An element is accessed by indexing the array name. This is done by placing the index of the
element within square brackets after the name of the array. For example –

double salary = balance[9];

The above statement will take the 10th element from the array and assign the value to salary
variable. The following example Shows how to use all the three above mentioned concepts viz.
declaration, assignment, and accessing arrays –

#include <stdio.h>

int main () {

int n[ 10 ]; /* n is an array of 10 integers */

int i,j;

/* initialize elements of array n to 0 */

for ( i = 0; i < 10; i++ ) {
n[ i ] = i + 100; /* set element at location i to i + 100 */
}

/* output each array element's value */

for (j = 0; j < 10; j++ ) {
printf("Element[%d] = %d\n", j, n[j] );
}

return 0;
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result –

Element[0] = 100
Element[1] = 101
Element[2] = 102
Element[3] = 103
Element[4] = 104
Element[5] = 105
Element[6] = 106
Element[7] = 107
Element[8] = 108
Element[9] = 109

Properties of Array

The array contains the following properties.

• Each element of an array is of same data type and carries the same size, i.e., int = 4 bytes.
• Elements of the array are stored at contiguous memory locations where the first element
is stored at the smallest memory location.
• Elements of the array can be randomly accessed since we can calculate the address of
each element of the array with the given base address and the size of the data element.

Advantages of an Array in C

1. Random access of elements using array index.

2. Use of less line of code as it creates a single array of multiple elements.
3. Easy access to all the elements.
4. Traversal through the array becomes easy using a single loop.
5. Sorting becomes easy as it can be accomplished by writing less line of code.

Disadvantages of an Array in C

1. Allows a fixed number of elements to be entered which is decided at the time of

declaration. Unlike a linked list, an array in C is not dynamic.
2. Insertion and deletion of elements can be costly since the elements are needed to be
managed in accordance with the new memory allocation.
Arrays in Detail

Arrays are important to C and should need a lot more attention. The following important
concepts related to array should be clear to a C programmer –

Sr.No. Concept & Description

1 Multi-dimensional arrays

C supports multidimensional arrays. The simplest form of the multidimensional

array is the two-dimensional array.

2 Passing arrays to functions

You can pass to the function a pointer to an array by specifying the array's name
without an index.

3 Return array from a function

C allows a function to return an array.

4 Pointer to an array
You can generate a pointer to the first element of an array by simply specifying the
array name, without any index.